


Exercise in Love

by Shakespeares_Girl



Category: Glam Rock RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-21
Updated: 2011-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-14 23:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shakespeares_Girl/pseuds/Shakespeares_Girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Cheesy title is cheesy.)  Adam and Tommy are partners in an acting class.  For a prompt on glam_kink requesting Adam asking someone to be his boyfriend in front of class.  I didn't quite make the parameters, but it's pretty close.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exercise in Love

Adam watched his acting partner carefully while he prepared for his part in their upcoming improv exercise. They were supposed to set a time and a place to meet, then arrange for a third party to record them somehow. The partner arriving first had to pick an emotion they were currently feeling and try and project it to the other partner. The second partner had to pick up on the emotion successfully and go on to try to alter the first partner’s mood. Adam was really excited, because no matter what emotion Tommy Ratliff, his acting partner, picked, Adam had the perfect way to make him react.

Adam watched while Tommy sat on the steps outside the library. He looked sad, lonely. Adam grinned. From the copse of trees across the street from the library, his friend Monte gave him the thumbs up, his signal to start the exercise. Adam started walking. For a second, nerves took over his body, and Adam contemplated walking right on by and trying again some other time, but he swallowed his fear, channeled it into focus and plopped down beside Tommy. “Hey,” he said by way of greeting.

“Oh. Hi,” Tommy mumbled, barely looking up.

“I have something I wanted to get your opinion on,” Adam said, eyeing Tommy. “But maybe this isn’t the time, if you’d rather be alone?”

“No, it’s--it’s fine,” Tommy scrunched up his nose and did a passable imitation of an annoyed growl, but Adam read the underlying sadness and frustration beneath it. “Go ahead.”

“Okay,” Adam took a deep breath. “There’s--well, you know I’m gay, right? Like, I figure the whole campus probably knows, but I’ve never--”

“I know you’re gay,” Tommy interrupted. “You’re not exactly subtle about it.”

“Good, that makes this easier. See, there’s this guy I like. He’s in a few of my classes with me, and I don’t know. He’s really cute, you know? It’s like, he’s exactly my type, and he’s sweet and we’re sort of getting to be pretty good friends.”

“I don’t get it,” Tommy frowned in earnest, sufficiently distracted from his funk to turn more fully toward Adam. “What do you need my opinion about?”

Adam smiled. “I want to know if you think I should ask him out, or if I should just let us be friends. Your honest opinion. I mean, I really like this guy, but I don’t want to fuck it up, you know?”

Tommy stared at him. “Might help if I knew who it was,” he hinted, but Adam just shook his head and chewed on his lip. “What’s he look like?”

“He’s shorter than me--”

“Not hard,” Tommy snorted.

“Not at all,” Adam agreed. “Shorter, with this whole punk rocker attitude thing going on that’s just oodles of cute, and he’s musical, which is awesome, since we can talk about that for like, days on end. He’s quiet, but I don’t think he’s actually shy, you know, just perceptive, like he doesn’t need to talk to feel included in things. He’s got the greatest hands, too, guitar player hands, with strong fingers and callouses and the sort of firm grip you just know would do all kinds of sinful--”

“Okay, now is so not the time to go into your sex fantasies about some guy’s hands with me,” Tommy interrupted again. Adam had the grace to look sheepish. “Dude, just ask him. He’s probably just as into you as you’re into him. Bite the fucking bullet, man,” he advises.

He couldn’t have stopped his smile if he’d tried. “Really? You think so?” Adam asked, heart fluttering in the happily-nervous way he hadn’t felt since his high-school crush on his music teacher.

“Dude. Fucking do it already and take your big-ass, flamboyant self elsewhere, okay?” Tommy demanded.

Adam got up and stood at the bottom of the steps, weirdly conscious that Monte was recording this for posterity. If he’d read Tommy wrong at all, this was going to go epically wrong. “Okay,” he said, doing that deep breathing thing he’d been working on lately. “I’m gonna do it.”

“Cool. We done with this little exercise in humiliation or what?”

“Aw, baby, don’t you like acting class?” Adam asked. Tommy just raised a surly eyebrow at Adam and glared. “Yeah, the exercise is done. I just have one more question and then I’ll leave, okay?”

“Fine.”

“Thomas Joseph Ratliff, will you do me the honor of being my boyfriend?”

If Tommy had been sitting in a chair, he would have fallen off. As it was, Adam had to reach out and grab his arm to keep him from sliding down the steps. Once Tommy had his balance again, he peered up at Adam dangerously. “You fucking with me?”

“No,” Adam shook his head. “Promise I’m not.”

“This is for real? Not part of the damn acting class?”

“For real. Will you go out with me? Please?” And now Adam was nervous, butterflies panicking because they couldn’t find their way out of his stomach, and shit, if Adam was making a fool of himself in a public place, the least they could do was wait until he was safely back in the privacy of his dorm before they ripped his stomach apart and made their escape. “I wanna know you better than anyone, Tommy Joe.”

Tommy blinked at him. For a horrifying minute, Adam was sure he was going to turn him down, but then, slowly, Tommy began to smile. “Fuck. You’re serious. You’re serious. Fuck.” His grin grew. “Fuck. Yes. Yes!”

Adam’s smile matched Tommy’s, and without thinking, he reached out and hauled Tommy into his arms. Tommy came willingly, and it was so easy to just lean down and kiss him that Adam did it without thinking, a heated press of lips, more jubilant than finessed. When he pulled back, Adam rubbed a thumb across Tommy’s mouth, then twined their hands together. “Can I walk you somewhere?” he asked.

“Sure. I was kinda thinking of lunch soon?”

“It’s three in the afternoon!” Adam laughed.

“So? That doesn’t mean I’ve eaten,” Tommy pointed out. They’re half way to the cafeteria when suddenly Adam stops.

“Oh God. Monte!” They stop, and when they turn, Monte had followed them, camera in hand, looking confused as to whether he should keep filming. Adam cut his hand across his throat, and finally Monte grinned and gave the thumbs up sign again.

“I’ll leave the footage in your room!” he shouted before he turned to leave.

Adam returned his attention to Tommy, and there was a guilty look on his face. “Sorry about that, I forgot--”

Tommy shrugged. “With that footage? We’re so gonna ace this.”


End file.
